


In the Fade

by accol



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Blood, Dubious Consent, F/M, Feelings of Inadequacy, Stitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 12:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/accol/pseuds/accol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompts "stitches, pain"</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Fade

She comes to, conscious from a shiny, sugary fade. Her fingers are already working. Maybe she’s been doing this forever. Pushing, dragging, finding the next stitch.   
  
His gasp snaps her the rest of the way into reality. A slip of her hand, startled, through the red wetness and she’s stabbed him with the needle.   
  
“Gentle,” Leoben hisses. She startles again. It’s too fond and she has never deserved that.   
  
His breathing is too shallow. Rising and falling like a rabbit. She smears a hand across his chest, still dazed. Curious maybe, or trying to comfort him. Her fingers go back to the thread. Prick. Blood wells from her fingertip and is lost in the wash of his.   
  
She’s patching the damage she inflicted. The stab wound is now neatly closed with a row of whip-stitches. He’s bruised from her fists. Heartache tears on the inside of her chest. A mirror of his wound, just as deep.   
  
Old bodies always came back as fresh incarnations, but this time he’s kept her bruises. It’s livid purple and red with the stitches passing through it like an arrow.  
  
One through a heart.  
  
She slumps forward, trying to curl inward, but his hands coax her open again. His smile is real. Leoben is real. The pain is real, and it’s heartache for something she doesn’t deserve. He always sees through her like she’s shot full of holes.   
  
“Gentle,” she echoes. Not with her body, because she doesn’t want gentle. With that undeserving heart, be gentle.   
  
His teeth are bared. It’s a smile and it’s hunger because  _gentle_  is finally permission. Still he pins her. Finger marks will circle her wrists later from the force of her struggle. The snap of his hips makes her scream because she doesn’t deserve to feel this good. Bursting at the seams.  
  
Wrenching a hand free, she rubs a thumb through the beads of blood on his chest, circling it in widening arcs until the buzz overtakes her and she’s back in the white fade.

 


End file.
